Welcome, and What's All This About?

March 13, 2016 will mark the very first public performance of Vent Nouveau - an idea that fellow West Point Band clarinetist Sam Kaestner and I have had simmering for some time now. In fact, many of the founding members (translation: people that have been roped in to spending their free time rehearsing, recording a demo, and looking beautiful for some head shots) are or were members of the West Point Band, however there were many NYC area musicians involved in recording our demo and who will be involved in the future.

So what is it all about?? It's really about performing repertoire that many of us feel is underperformed, and bringing light to an ensemble that is often seen as less serious than our string quartet playing peers. No one can deny that there is a huge repertoire of great music for string quartet, but what many people outside of the wind playing community don't know is that some of the same great composers wrote major works for wind chamber ensembles. Harmoniemusik was the beginning of the repertoire for us, and composers continue to write for small and large groups of wind instruments to this day. A late summer performance (at Merryall Center for the Arts in CT) will feature more recent compositions for winds by the composers Paul Hindemith and Leoš Janáček, and as we are able to schedule more performances our hope is to continue promoting this repertoire. 

But what about this weekend? A woodwind quintet of myself, Katrina Elsnick, Anna Pennington, Briana Lehman, and Nicole Caluori will be performing at the Croton Free Library at 2:00 PM. The program will include the following works: Early Hungarian Dances by Ferenc Farkas, Bläserquintett by Endre Szervánsky, Divertimento for flute, oboe, and clarinet by Malcom Arnold, and a new work by Johnterryl Plumeri, Quintet in G Major. The work by Plumeri will be recorded later spring in collaboration with the composer. 

Please let me know if you have any questions about the performance or the group by leaving a comment or contacting us through the message form on the "contact" tab. We would also love to hear which pieces you think should be highlighted!

Words by Kristen Mather de Andrade